


gone to meet your maker

by mollivanders



Category: Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles
Genre: F/M, Gen, Mildly Dubious Consent, Other, Post-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-02
Updated: 2012-08-02
Packaged: 2019-04-08 03:56:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,010
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14096688
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mollivanders/pseuds/mollivanders
Summary: She shows up at his base three days later, wearing the silver bracelet, but John knows – knows it in her movements and her eyes and orders his men to let her in only to pin her down, electrocute her so he can pull her chip out. They obey, they follow, and he leads the way, cradling her chip in the palm of his hand.“Keep the rest of them out,” he tells the man at the door and disappears into his quarters to reprogram the only machine that matters. Her body is lying prone on his bed and he glances over at her, anxious and careful, hoping he doesn’t fuck it up.He’d almost forgotten what she looked like, but when she opens her eyes – she’s there. Almost.“John Connor,” she says and he swallows, stretches a hand out to brush hair from her face. “I’m supposed to terminate you,” she says, sitting up, and John draws back to meet her eyes.“Not anymore,” he says and watches her consider.“Not ever,” she says. “I have a message for the resistance. For John Connor.”“It can wait,” he says. “I have bigger plans for you.”





	gone to meet your maker

He misses her like hell. Misses her every day.  
  
The worst part isn’t how nobody knows who he is after all, or how it’s been a year and he still hasn’t found her. It isn’t even how Kyle and Derek are starting to treat him like  _John Connor_. No, the worst part is his mom’s long dead and there’s nobody left to remind him that Cameron was  _just a machine_.  
  
She didn’t feel like a machine. She didn’t talk to him like a machine. He remembers a girl, not a machine, no matter what he tells himself: she wasn’t human; she was a piece of metal, clunking around in another girl’s skin.  
  
On good days he remembers to hate Catherine Weaver, who brought him here – left him on this side of hell and hasn’t reappeared since. The hate focuses him, makes him a better fighter, better leader. Other days, well – other days he’s more fickle. More like his old self.  
  
(He’s only sixteen.)  
  
There’s no place for hate in what he feels for Cameron, though. Misses her like hell, wishes he knew why she came here, why she  _brought_  him here, but never –   
  
That was always the problem.  
  
(And if he’s being honest – which he almost never is – she didn’t bring him here.  
  
She left him. He followed. Simple as that.)  
  
Once, he sees Riley and pretends he doesn’t know her, walks past her like it’s nothing until he’s around the corner and can vomit what little dinner he’d had outside. She doesn’t know him, of course, but he can’t spare much worry for her.  
  
Their story’s already finished.  
  
+  
  
Two years after landing here, the machines finally capture him.  
  
(He goes half-mad, just like his mother, when he realizes they don’t know they’ve got  _John Connor_.  
  
They don’t know him in this life.  
  
He doesn’t exist. Not yet.)  
  
When he leads the escape, Derek claps him on the back and Kyle looks at him with something like pride and John wishes that just once he could be alone here.  
  
Somehow he ends up in Allison’s bed instead.  
  
+  
  
With three more years gone he’s risen in the ranks, gotten the attention of the scattered human forces. A scrappy kid isn’t supposed to lead grown men, and he knows in another life, they followed him for another reason. He’s not that kid anymore though, and they see it in his eyes. Funny how he never sees anything else, still hasn’t forgotten what brought him here in the first place.  
  
(He hears his mother in his head, ordering him to survive, to never feel safe even now, surrounded by a legion.  
  
He doesn’t disappoint her.)  
  
It’s a human who betrays him, a skinny teenage boy who hasn’t had a decent meal in months and John tries to feel sorry for him when the machines kill the boy while the rest of the men stand around. In a cruel twist of fate, Derek claims to be Connor long enough for a Terminator to blow his head off and twenty-one year old John Connor has to scramble away from his uncle’s mangled corpse, act like it’s not his fault.  
  
(It’s hard to remember they don’t  _just_  fight for him.)  
  
But there’s something familiar about the Terminator who burns the tattoo on his arm, who watches him with curiosity when he’s breaking rocks, and he wonders if it knows they didn’t kill the man they came for. Wonders what a machine has to be curious about for and feels a familiar pull in his gut when it stares at him, stands apart from the rest of its kind.  
  
It doesn’t take six years this time; it takes six months before he breaks his men out, just in time for his twenty-second birthday.  
  
(He’s got a ghost of a plan, but he’ll wait.)  
  
+  
  
When they’re sitting around having a drink, waiting for the machines to attack, it’s Allison who asks him about his mother. John doesn’t miss the way Kyle hangs on his every word, asks questions for the gaps John leaves in the stories. He knows that with every story he gets closer to losing his father but it’s not hard to hand over the only picture he’s found – Sarah’s arrest photo – when Kyle’s eyes light up with a grin.  
  
“She was a handful, wasn’t she?” Kyle asks and John shrugs, smiles a little.  
  
“Yeah, I guess,” he says and leaves Kyle with the picture.  
  
(It’s not long after he gets the intel on the time machine and prepares himself to lose everything all over.)  
  
+  
  
A week after Allison gets in his face about not putting her on patrol anymore, John relents and sends her on an intel mission, nothing that dangerous. He doesn’t know what to do with her most of the time; he can’t risk her dying.  
  
(If she dies, he loses  _her_.)  
  
Some days, he feels like an asshole. Most days, John Connor doesn’t have that luxury. It’s not just him; Allison’s got barely any field experience and was mostly a refugee until John showed up, somehow – nobody knows how – became part of the inner circle. Protected.  
  
When he gets the word the team’s been captured; the mission compromised, John locks himself in his quarters and waits. If she’s dead, there’s nothing he can do. If she’s not –   
  
+  
  
She shows up at his base three days later, wearing the silver bracelet, but John knows – knows it in her movements and her eyes and orders his men to let her in only to pin her down, electrocute her so he can pull her chip out. They obey, they follow, and he leads the way, cradling her chip in the palm of his hand.  
  
“Keep the rest of them out,” he tells the man at the door and disappears into his quarters to reprogram the only machine that matters. Her body is lying prone on his bed and he glances over at her, anxious and careful, hoping he doesn’t fuck it up.  
  
He’d almost forgotten what she  _looked_  like, but when she opens her eyes – she’s there. Almost.  
  
“John Connor,” she says and he swallows, stretches a hand out to brush hair from her face. “I’m supposed to terminate you,” she says, sitting up, and John draws back to meet her eyes.  
  
“Not anymore,” he says and watches her consider.  
  
“Not ever,” she says. “I have a message for the resistance. For John Connor.”  
  
“It can wait,” he says. “I have bigger plans for you.”  
  
+  
  
It’s no surprise that when the machines become more and more a part of the resistance, more men begin to question him. It helps that they’re winning, but the occasional rogue Terminator doesn’t help matters.  
  
Cameron though – that’s something all the resistance doesn’t like.  
  
“They’re becoming a problem,” Cameron tells him and he shakes his head, remembering how difficult she could be. How difficult she is.  
  
“They’re tired of dying,” he says instead and passes her the latest intel report. Her little machine uprising is helping end the war by itself, lets John divide his attention between survival and searching. “Any luck on finding Catherine Weaver?”  
  
“She doesn’t go by that name anymore,” Cameron says, locks eyes with him. “But yes. The one you know as Catherine Weaver is leading the uprising in Australia.”  
  
“Can you reach out to her?” John asks, tense and knowing Cameron can see it. “Set up a meet?”  
  
A smile flits across Cameron’s face and he wishes, for the thousandth time, she didn’t have to go.  
  
“It’s done,” she says.  
  
+  
  
(The Australia attempt fails, horribly.)  
  
+  
  
“What does she  _want_?!” John yells when Cameron gives him the news, panting as he surveys the wreckage he’s just created. His officers are staring at him in shock, wary, but Cameron doesn’t move an inch.  
  
“Assurance,” she says. “If she won’t join the resistance, it’s because she can’t trust you.”  
  
“Then I’ll make her trust me,” John says and scans the room. “Everyone, out.”  
  
“You’re going to lose them,” she tells him as the room empties and John laughs.  
  
“I don’t care,” he says. “I’m not here for them.”  
  
If he didn’t know better, he’d swear there was disappointment in her eyes.  
  
+  
  
This time, John goes himself, meets with Weaver in what used to be Honolulu. She looks the same as ever, pristine suit and sharp eyes laughing at him from a hundred yards away.  
  
“Good to see you, Mr. Connor,” she says and John smiles darkly, closes the distance between them and pulls his gun, lets it hang by his side.  
  
It doesn’t mean a damn thing.  
  
“Manners,” she reminds him but John just shakes his head. “You’ve had her this whole time,” he accuses and Weaver tips her head a fraction. “You may be right, Mr. Connor, but stating a truth does not gain you anything.”  
  
“I want her back,” he says, flips the safety off. “Or I turn myself over to Skynet and let your whole machine uprising get smashed while Skynet doesn’t have to worry about the human resistance anymore.”  
  
“I doubt that,” she says but there’s a hint of shock in her eyes when he pulls the gun to his head and stares at her.  
  
“Don’t,” he says. “What have I got to lose?”  
  
“If you would throw your own life away, why should I trust you with John Henry?” Weaver asks and John drops the gun.  
  
“Don’t trust me,” he says. “Trust her. Trust her and get the backing of the human resistance and my full focus, and we can all live a long, happy life.”  
  
He doesn’t expect a response right away, just holsters his gun and backs away towards his ship when he hears Weaver call out.  
  
“Alright, Mr. Connor,” she says, her voice an echo in his ear. “We have a deal.”  
  
+  
  
“Would you have done it?” Cameron asks later, when he’s back at headquarters, and he barely looks up from what he’s doing. “What do you think?” he asks and Cameron tilts her head.  
  
“I think if you’re going to blow yourself up, you’re a danger to the resistance,” she says. It’s all John can do to keep from laughing.  
  
“Not anymore,” he promises and passes her a file. “I have a mission for you.”  
  
+  
  
One Cameron goes in, another Cameron comes back, and only John can tell the difference.  
  
She’s battered and bruised and he can tell Weaver’s been using her in the time between, but it's done now. She's here. Her chip’s intact and more importantly, not wiped of the past six years. When she opens her eyes, he knows the risk was worth it.  
  
(As if he ever had any doubt.)  
  
She wakes on his bed, turns her head to stare at him like she had so many times before, reaches down for his hand. It's a moment before she pulls herself up and collects her surroundings, John's heart pounding in his chest with every passing second.  
  
“Not anymore?” she asks again and John doesn’t know what to say - her voice in his head, her eyes in his memory – buries his face in his hands for a long minute before she pulls them away and makes him face her. Steadies him.  
  
(She was never just a machine.)  
  
“Not now,” he says and pulls her up off the bed with him, feels her pull back when he takes a step. “You coming?” he asks, confused until she takes his wrist in her hand and studies it. It's a show of surprise, and he doesn't know what else he's changed, but he didn't expect this.   
  
“Well?” he asks and she drops his arm, looks him in the eye with none of the uncertainty in his own. “Come with me if you want to live,” she says with the ghost of a smile, and heads out the door before him. Lets him catch up after her, take his place at her side, her step in sync with his, and a wild thought enters his mind.

 _They might win this war after all_.

(Together, they head into the light.)  
  
_Finis_

**Author's Note:**

> I don't consider the John/Allison content to be dubcon because I don't read it as John using a relationship with her to get Cameron, but the tag is there just in case. Originally posted at LJ/DW. I've made (very) minor edits to that draft here.


End file.
